


Timing Point

by Redcodah



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Explicit Language, Implied/Referenced Torture, Minor Violence, Other, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Tags May Change
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-04-04
Updated: 2018-05-01
Packaged: 2019-04-18 06:47:00
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 19,004
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14207430
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Redcodah/pseuds/Redcodah
Summary: William Tucker used to be HYDRA.Now he's just having the worst bloody time.





	1. Tuna and Orange Soda

**Author's Note:**

> For Misti

The bus was late.  Of course it was late.  Will took a deep breath - in through the nose, and out through the mouth.  Slow cycle. He was _not_ going to let a late bus get to him.  It was his first day out of prison. His transportation had dropped him off at the Greyhound station, and now he was sitting with a rucksack filled with a good pair of work boots and a bible he’d been given five years ago that was still wrapped in plastic.  William Tucker did not believe in God. In his pocket was his wallet with everything out of date and two hundred dollars. Half of which came from his parents.  
  
_Please don’t contact us again._  They’d put in four twenties, the ten, and the two five dollar bills.  Signed their names at the bottom. That was that. He supposed, in a dispassionate sort of way, that he wouldn’t want to be involved with someone who had previously been in a terrorist organization either.  Still, while he was in prison they’d written to him at Christmas, and sent a card on his birthday. They’d never sent money before. Maybe it was to assuage some sort of guilt. But Will chose to respect their wishes.  They’d moved during the five years he was in prison. He’d torn up the letter and the envelope. Now he didn’t have their address. Wish granted. Maybe he’d be hurt by the betrayal of family later on. SHIELD had put him in prison, he doubted HYDRA would want him back, and no one else did either.  Right now, though, the bus was late and everything was too overwhelming for him to be hurt by a stupid letter.

 

* * *

 

Two weeks and three days later he was working in a sandwich shop.  It was entirely without anything resembling a redeeming feature. The vast majority of customers were angry, irritating, stupid, or self-absorbed.  Sometimes all four, and Will was about thirty seconds away at any given time from beating them across the face with a loaf of honey-oat bread. Honey-oat bread with tuna fish and (as of yet) some sort of undecided cheese.  Maybe even toasted. It was a pity. He used to like the smell of toasting bread.  
  
“Captain America saved me.”  The man had a grating voice but was otherwise utterly forgettable.  “He did. Not even three blocks from here.”  
  
By his count, Will was pretty sure that the Avengers, as they called themselves, had personally saved everyone in New York at least three times; if he could go by the number of people who insisted that they were saved, anyway.  “That’s great, sir. What kind of cheese did you want on your sub?” His left leg, from hip to ankle, hurt like a motherfucker. He’d been standing too long.  
  
“Maybe closer — maybe two blocks.”  
  
Will counted to five in his head.  It didn’t help. “Sir. Please focus.  I need to know what kind of cheese you want.”  
  
“With his own hands!”  
  
“Sir, with all due respect - I’m positive you’re a busy man with a short lunch break.  Cheese, sir. Focus on cheese. What kind do you want.” Will’s jaw was clamped shut in what he hoped was a professional kind of smile while he managed to talk perfectly clearly through clenched teeth.  His mother had done that. The clearer her voice through gritted teeth, the more trouble he was in.  
  
The customer remained oblivious.  “Huh? Oh, tuna.”  
  
Will looked at the sub sandwich which already had tuna on it.  He contemplated his life up until that point and decided that he kind of wished he’d died when he’d taken that stupid shield to the chest the one time.  It’d turned his sternum to powder. It was less painful than this conversation. “Yes, sir. Tuna. Do. You. Want. Cheese?”  
  
“Oh, uh.  Nah. You know what?  I don’t think I want a sub sandwich.  Thanks anyway.” He turned and walked out.  
  
Later that night, at the shelter, someone asked Will if he’d always had that nervous tic in the corner of his eye.  He scrubbed until hands didn’t smell like mayonnaise and pickles anymore and his hair didn’t smell quite like bread of questionable freshness.

 

* * *

 

Working for HYDRA, in a general all-purpose-grunt capacity, had left Will with a deep appreciation for those who were higher up on the food chain.  He respected the talent, and in return for that and not royally sucking at things, he was generally not bothered too much. He did his job. He didn’t get shot in the back of the head or used for spare parts and he got a decent paycheck.  He’d had dental and medical, but he was absolutely certain those weren’t benefits he wanted to experience in HYDRA past the first time where they basically wired the middle of his chest back together and the second when they’d done the same with the head of his left femur and part of his pelvis.  But still? They were there.  
  
At Subway, he got an employee discount and discovered an otherwise previously unknown hatred for micromanaging supervisors who were seventeen years old but looked like they were fourteen.  And squeaked when their voices broke.  
  
“I could get you fired.  I could get you fired right now.”  Will didn’t bother learning the kid’s name.  They were all equally terrible. It was probably some version of ‘Shawn’ though.  He was pretty sure everyone under the age of twenty was named Shawn these days. He’d cleverly dyed his hair an eye-melting shade of orange and he wore too much body spray that was probably flammable.  Will hated him.  
  
“Okay,”  Will said agreeably.  He watched the gears in the kid’s mind turn.  If Will were fired, he’d have to work instead of playing games on his phone in the back.  It was a slow process, and it probably hurt to use the four brain cells the kid had. Will found himself missing the Strike teams that occasionally rolled through his section.  They were terrifying people, and he’d never worked directly with any of them (just on the edges of things, enough to see but not enough for them to notice him in return), but they were sharp as glass shards and could think fast as light when the situation called for it.  Comparatively speaking, this was a special version of hell. As bad as dial-up internet. Personally, Will didn’t care at all if he were fired. It’d be a welcome change of pace, actually.  
  
“I won’t, though.  I’m doing you a favor.”  
  
“Okay,” Will said agreeably.  In his head, he wished for a swift and brutal death.  His or his annoying little supervisor’s. One or the other.  The corner of his eye twitched.

 

* * *

 

He should’ve been saving his money.  Instead of saving his money, he was was sitting at a table in a dive bar with his third beer in his hand (domestic, not imported - he wasn’t a complete financial illiterate).  Will wasn’t drunk yet, and he was reasonably sure he wasn’t going to manage to get there before he left. This was, at best, disappointing.  
  
There were three other people at the table.  Leslie to his right. He was drinking water. Four ice cubes (it wasn’t just a number, he’d asked for exactly four) with lemon.  Across from him was Joy. Her choice of drink was the house red, and she didn’t care about what was actually in the glass; her personality was best described as ‘wine mom’ except she didn’t have any kids and too many ferrets.  On his left was Russ. Russ was also drinking domestic beer, but was almost entirely engaged in the hockey game that was prominently featured on the prominently displayed television above the prominent bar. How they’d managed to get through an hour of conversation without saying a damn thing was completely beyond Will’s comprehension.  
  
They all worked, and continued to work, for HYDRA.  They’d come into the Subway, Will had recognized them and vice versa.  They invited him out for drinks. He’d accepted. They were not friends.  Will didn’t have friends and found himself aggressively okay with that fact.  
  
Everything about it was uncomfortable.  
  
“So.  Prison.  That’s…” Joy searched for the right word.  Pursed her lips and tapped the stem of her wine glass with a well-manicured fingernail.  Will remembered her pushing a wire cart filled with mail and packages through the halls, and it was weird seeing her with nails that were so intensely rounded and red.  
  
“Hell?  Miserable?  Soul-killing?”  Leslie offered, with a weird little smile.  
  
“Hell, miserable, and soul-killing.”  Will agreed.  
  
“Huh?”  Russ blinked twice, slowly, and his eyes went back to the television.  “Who’s in jail this time?”  
  
Will elected to ignore  him since there wasn’t a whole lot to answer that with anyway, and focused on Joy and Leslie.  “I liked it better than working at Subway.”  
  
Joy looked at her two co-workers, and then looked at Will again.  “You know,” she said slowly. “You could come back. They lost, you know.  They lost the Asset. It’s not like it’s there anymore. Probably won’t get it back no matter how much they hunt for it.  You could come back - no one would even remember that, uh, that nickname you picked up-”  
  
“You know they would.  Besides, what am I gonna do.  Run around with a gun again?”

They all knew what he’d end up being.  Dead or spare parts. There weren’t very many other options out there for someone who’d been _caught._  Not with his record with HYDRA.

 

* * *

 

The bus was late.  Four minutes and counting.  Will just wanted to go to the shelter, bunk down, and sleep for about four hundred years because he didn’t want to deal with dumbass teenage supervisors or people who didn’t understand the concept of ordering a goddamn sandwich.  How the fuck anyone didn’t understand that egg salad was made of eggs was just… beyond him. The soda can he had in his hand crinkled a little at the force he was gripping it and he forced himself to calm down and take a sip.  
  
The skin on the back of his neck prickled up.  
  
In prison, Will learned not to ignore that feeling.  Instead, he started looking cautiously around. In front first.  Traffic, crowds, no one looking his direction. Man on a bike with a messenger bag zipped by.  To the right. People coming towards him but not seeing him. They were on their phones or being gaping tourists.  Nothing behind him but building and people passing by.  
  
Left though.  
  
On his left, he saw the Asset.  
  
The Asset, on the other hand, was not looking at him.  He was looking at a store front, wearing a grey hoodie.  Open. White shirt. Blue jeans. Brown boots. His hair was longer than last time Will had seen him, and also a hell of a lot cleaner.  No mask, but it was him, it was _him_ , and every instinct in Will told him to run run _run_ because when the Asset was around, people tended to not live very long.  It didn’t matter if he’d been out of HYDRA for a while now, animal instinct was clawing at the inside of Will’s skull.  And between his hip and the crowd, he was not going to be running very well for very long.  
  
So with all the sensible options squashed like a chip bag under the wheels of a car, he did something completely insensible and threw his half empty orange soda at the _goddamn Asset_ who _wasn’t even looking at him._  
  
He didn’t even see his arm come up and catch the can.  
  
He definitely saw the sticky, orange liquid leave the can and splash across the Asset’s face.  And down his front, staining his shirt and hoodie pale pastel. He looked astonished and confused.  His eyebrow dripped. Will was also astonished and confused, and praised a minimum of four deities that he didn’t believe in that the bus stopped and he could get on and think about what he’d just done.

 

* * *

 

“Bucky?!  What the hell, I was in there for two minutes to get a newspaper - you’ve only been back in New York for a half hour!  What happened?!”  
  
“...I’m going to Canada, Steve.  I’m going to go live in the goddamn _woods_.”

 

* * *

 

“Joy.  JOY. MOTHERFUCKER TAKE ME OFF SPEAKER PHONE.  This is bad enough without you adding to it, goddammit Joy I can hear people laughing!”  Will was speaking into a public phone and there weren’t any walls to surround the phone and when did phone booths lose those anyway?!  
  
“Jesus, Will, calm down.  This is hilarious. Okay, okay.  I’m not taking you off speaker phone, but you gotta calm down.”  Yup, there was definitely laughter in the background, behind the snickering female voice that wasn’t at all sympathetic.  
  
Will started to absolutely seethe.  “I’m not going to _calm the fuck down_ .  Why do I have to be on speakerphone, just write up a report or something.  Anonymous tip. Fuck’s sake, Joy!”  
  
“Come on man, breathing exercises or something.  Okay, we got some security in here. Tell the story again.  Everyone’s heard it now, you might as well.”  
  
“I goddamn hate you, Joy.  Fine! Jesus. I saw the asset.  I threw a soda at him because I’m an idiot.  Who’s there with you - is it Rumlow? If it’s Rumlow I’m hanging up right now, honest to whatever God is listening.”  
  
“Rumlow’s gone, hun.  He got… I don’t know what the most appropriate word would be here.  Squished. By a building. He was squished by a building. Still alive somewhere, I think, though.”  
  
“Good, he was a sonofabitch anyway.”  
  
“Rollins is here, though!”  
  
“ _GODDAMMIT JOY I’M GOING TO PUNCH YOU IN THE GODDAMN TIT!”_ The threat was out before he had a chance to pull it back, all fury and snarling, but it just made the people in the background laugh harder.  Will firmly reminded himself that they’d all get pensioned out if he got a gun and made them stop laughing.  And security was probably really good so he wouldn't be able to shoot anyone in the kneecap or something. He, on the other hand, would be lucky if he was put right back in prison with a bunch of new charges.  
  
“So how did the Asset look?”    
  
“I don’t know!  He-”  
  
“It.”  
  
“ _He_ looked fine, I guess.  Like he’s recently eaten food.  Had a shower. Washed his hair. Jesus… uh.  Like he shaved at least once this fucking decade, I don’t know!”  
  
“Any new distinguishing features?  And it’s ‘it’, not ‘he’. ‘He’ implies, you know, humanness.”  
  
“Well, he’s recently been covered in orange soda.  And it’s a ‘he’, Joy. I fucking know it’s a ‘he’. Want me to repeat the story of how very fucking much I know it’s a ‘he’?  I still have the scars, and believe me when I say I remember every fucking second like it just happened.”  
  
“Jesus, Will.  Just… look, keep an eye out and call if you see it again and try not to throw things at its head.”  
  
“Two punches!  Two tit punches, I swear to God, Joy!”  
  
“Quit whining, _Grada_ ,” Joy chirped cheerfully, and Will felt ice suddenly crystallize in the pit of his stomach.  She said something else, a question, but he didn’t hear it. He hung up instead and walked away.

 

* * *

 

Will had gotten a second job, and shortly thereafter he’d saved enough for a tiny, cramped, studio apartment that wasn’t very far from where he worked (the Subway in one direction and the grocer in the other), and Will was pretty proud of it.  He didn’t have any real furniture yet, but it was within his budget as long as … well, as long as nothing happened at all, basically. He really needed to find a better job, preferably in singular. But, as it was, the apartment might have been cramped but it was warm, and who really needed a bed or even a mattress when you had a few blankets and a good pillow up close to a radiator?  And it wasn’t like he had time to watch television, and books were free from the library as long as he returned them.  
  
Will chose to ignore the protesting twinges and pains in his hip when he sat down or laid down on the floor.  
  
He’d built a series of shelves from cinder blocks and planks, and that’s where his clothing was living for the time being.  He’d gotten some mismatched dishes from a dingy little second hand store. He had a small fridge and there were actual groceries in it even if it wasn’t much.  Toiletries and towels. An alarm clock with a radio in it so he could listen to some music and the news. He was starting to feel like a real boy these days.  
  
Maybe he should go to the library and email his parents… no.  That was a bad plan. He banished that particular thought out of his head pretty firmly.  They were really clear they didn’t want contact. It seemed much more productive to get and talk to a plant.  
  
Well, why not?  He’d get a plant.  He couldn’t imagine a plant being really expensive if he got it from Walmart or something.  This was a good plan. One of those spider plants. He’d read somewhere that they basically ate indoor pollution and he was reasonably sure that they were nigh immortal.  
  
And so, an hour later, he was walking down the sidewalk with a new plant friend in his arms.  Someone brushed by him, knocking him slightly off balance (fucking hip…) and he needed a second to juggle his plant and himself into a better position of not falling in the gutter.  
  
When he looked up again, the Asset was there.  Again. A couple buildings up the sidewalk, but still.  And this time he was being looked at before he threw something at his head.  And this time he was being accompanied by Captain-Fucking-America. Not in uniform, but still.  It was hard to mistake either one of them. The place that had been shattered in Will’s sternum ached, suddenly, in memory of what it was like to be broken.  He clutched his spider plant a lot closer to his gut. Ducked his head. Kept walking.  
  
He stopped breathing as he passed them.  Just for a moment. Couldn’t make himself do it.  He glanced up, looked right at the Asset ( _Jesus he was tall keep walking keep walking keep walking_ ), and then forced himself to look forward ( _one foot in front of the other keep walking keep walking_ ).  There was static growing in the back of his mind, where the animal things were, that made his hackles stand up and goosebumps crawl up his arms.  Dangerous. He felt a little sick to his stomach.

When he could breathe again, his nostrils flared.  Briefly. A rabbit scenting a fox, maybe. He wasn’t and couldn’t be sure which scent belonged to who, and it was all overlaid with the smell of the city.  But under the smell of people and exhaust and hot grease, there was … candy, maybe. Vanilla and caramel and honey chemical. Black coffee. He didn’t look up, but he could feel the scents settle on his tongue and his stomach lurched sideways in the worst way.  These were dangerous scents to go with dangerous men, then. He’d remember that. A bead of sweat rolled down his face.  
  
Down the block, far from the Asset and Captain America, or at least as far as his legs would carry him before he started shaking, he leaned up against a wall and didn’t mind at all that the dirty building would leave a smudge across the arm of his hoodie.  “Jesus. Jesus fucking _wept_.”

 

* * *

 

The hallway in his building, leading up to his apartment door, smelled like cigarette smoke, burnt onions, mildly of mold and bleach in equal measures.  These were all things that he associated with his building, and none of them were out of place. It also smelled like outside, and that was normal as well.  He had to juggle the plant briefly to get his keys out of his pocket. The hair on the back of his neck stood up again. Something was wrong. For a brief moment, something smelled sweet, like fake caramel.  
  
He stood for a moment.  No noise in his apartment, plenty from the others.  There wasn’t anything particularly different looking in the hallway.  He suddenly didn’t want to put his keys in the deadbolt, didn’t want to open the door.  
  
He wasn’t ever part of a Strike team.  He hadn’t been good enough. Close but no cigar.  And even then he still might have placed except certain things had made him uneasy and so he’d asked questions that he shouldn’t have asked to people he shouldn’t have spoken with.  He hadn’t been good _enough._ That didn’t mean he wasn’t any good at _all_ .  
  
They had been there.  That was his first assumption.  So he had to go in because they had been outside and while they might have circled back (unlikely at best) they’d know, somehow they’d know, that he hadn’t gone into the apartment.  He just… had to act normal. Will didn’t have anything to hide. Just a plant and absolutely jack shit all else.  
  
He unlocked the door and stepped inside and threw the bolt again.  Toed off his shoes. Put the plant on the counter. The candy-like smell was stronger here, and he could identify it.  Rabbit smelled the foxes once today; he could recognize it now. Maybe the Asset was losing his edge, or maybe he didn’t care.  Probably the latter.  
  
So they knew who he was.  They had to have, or they wouldn’t have cared enough to find his apartment.  They wouldn’t have broken in. Wouldn’t have _let them see them on the street_ .  Since the last one was appropriately frightening enough, why would they break in?  They either wanted something from there, or wanted to put something in there.  
  
Will nodded slowly while he got a glass of water from the sink, and drank half of it.  The other half was given to the plant. The place was bugged. He had nothing worth stealing, and nothing had been taken.  He had to assume it was bugged now.  
  
He went and sat down on little bed of blankets he’d made for himself, and then leaned back and rested his head against the wall.  What the fuck was he supposed to do now?

 

* * *

 

After a good half hour of staring at the wall, it occurred to Will that he didn’t have to do jack or shit.  When he was in his apartment, he slept or read. When he was out of his apartment, he was at work. They’d get a bunch of bad Subway customers, or they’d get grocery store customers who really wanted to know where the salt was when they were standing directly in front of it.  He didn’t have a life. He was just… going to absorb someone’s time and resources for absolutely nothing. Or his apartment wasn’t bugged at all, and he was losing his shit over nothing. He could get a burner phone easy enough, warn Joy and the lot, and live his life until it could safely be assumed he was no longer considered worrisome or someone got bored.  Hell, he would get bored with his own life.  
  
Huh.  
  
That made him feel better(ish) - that his life was so boring he’d be wasting someone else’s time.  He had no reason to feel better, but there it was. He could live with that. Well, shower time. He had work tonight.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to the lovely people who beta'd this for me - especially Sass. I wouldn't have had the guts to put this out without your encouragement.


	2. Talcum Powder

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Where Will chats with the Asset in a park and later teaches a baby agent a valuable lesson.

“My name isn’t Shawn,” his supervisor managed to squeak out with all the insulted anger that a seventeen year old was capable of (which wasn’t a whole lot in this particular case; Will remembered being a whole lot more angry when he was seventeen), “it’s Keith!”

Will considered this for a moment.  “Your parents are bad people.” He nodded, warming to the subject.  “Keith is the most unattractive name in the English language. _Family Guy_ even said so.”

This made the little brat turn red in the face for a moment and Will felt pretty gratified by it.  He didn’t actually think that it was a bad name, not something he’d ever name his kid but not bad; but this one was asking for it and besides that?  He remembered that episode of the show and it was just so perfect that Will couldn’t resist.

“Yeah, well!  You’re old and I’m not even eighteen yet and your supervisor!”  The kid smiled like he thought he had something there, and Will gave him a little credit for trying.   

Will squinted at him.  “So what?”

“I… well… doesn’t that bug you?”

“Nah, not really.  Look, I gotta go fill up the tomatoes.  Don’t you have some math homework to do or something?  English? You want some help with some English? I know what verbs are if that helps.”  Will said it with all sweetness and light, a sort of big-brother kindness. It was wholly calculated to throw Keith into a tailspin of rage.  Will wasn’t at all disappointed with the result, and it made him pretty damn happy for all of ten minutes.

And then a customer walked in.

“Hey, is your ham vegan?  What about your chicken?”

Will went to his next job with the nervous twitch making a spectacular comeback.  If there were any justice in the world, he should’ve been able to set people on fire with his mind.

 

* * *

 

“Oh, what the hell is this.”  Will was looking up at his apartment building, at his apartment, and his lights were on and there were people moving around inside.  He could see them, if not hear them because the windows were closed. There weren’t any vehicles parked on the street that he recognized at any given time, and looking at the nearest parking lots would be equally as hopeless, so he didn’t bother.

He wondered, vaguely, if he was going to make in to work in the morning.  If he would be making in to either of his jobs. If he was going to have to fight, and if his hip was going to be steady enough that he could do so.  His left eye twitched.

Maybe he should’ve kept walking.

But he was tired, and he smelled distinctly like he’d spent far too much time rolling in bread and vegetables and cardboard.  His hands smelled like pickles because the gloves did nothing. He was pretty sure his hair looked so healthy because of airborne particles of mayonnaise.  His fingers were laced with a fine network of paper and cardboard cuts. All he really wanted to do was shower, lay down, and sleep because he was going to have to do all this all over again the next day.

He took a couple deep breaths.  Whatever. It wasn’t like he had anything for people to steal.  He’d just tell them to keep the noise down and go to bed. Simple.  Fuck ‘em.

So Will found himself winding his way up the stairs and meandering down the hallway to his door.  There was no one talking inside, but quiet movement. When he turned the doorknob — unlocked, he noticed, even the movement stopped.  The hallway didn’t smell like coffee and caramel and vanilla and honey all at the same time, at least.

So he opened the door.

There were six people there, and they were all looking at him expectantly.  Joy was there, and Leslie. Three he didn’t recognize. And Rollins, fucking Rollins.  They were all being silent in his apartment. Staring at him. Judging him, probably, and his minimalistic lifestyle choices enforced by minimalistic paychecks.  Will just rolled his eyes and closed the door.

This was apparently a signal that allowed them to keep on working, and for a moment Will watched them.  They couldn’t have been there very long, since they were still placing bugs. Of course. So glad his apartment could become a communication hub between two different factions of stupid.  Will went to the fridge, got out a bottle of beer, and put it on the counter.

Rollins, because of course it was Rollins, took it immediately.  He had a smirk on his face that Will wished he had the courage to punch him.  But he didn’t, and Rollins twisted off the cap and took a pull from the bottle.  Will just responded by getting out some leftover stew and throwing it in a pot to reheat.  He otherwise ignored them. They ignored him right back.

When they left, Rollins left half the beer in the bottle, and left the bottle on his countertop.  Dick.

When he was sure they were gone, Will drank the remainder.  There was no point in wasting perfectly good beer, after all.  But he still waited, because nicknames and the reasons for them tended to stick to people.

 

* * *

 

“HYDRA bugged your apartment.”

Will nearly leapt out of his skin and his heart started pounding with the sensible beat of the finals of the world’s fastest drumming competition.

“Yes.  Thank you.  Yes, I know.  Thank you for telling me, but I already knew that.”  Will nodded, once he could gulp down a breath and not have an immediate heart attack at the same time.  It wasn’t right; he expected the Asset to have a Russian accent. He’d spoken Russian before. But he sounded otherwise the same.  He felt frozen to the spot on the bench in the park where he was taking his break. He wanted to get up. Run. Fight. Piss. All at the same time and none of them at all and he wasn’t sure he could remember how to swallow let alone stand up.

“You just let them do it?”  The Asset frowned at him, narrowed his eyes.  Will’s nostrils flared.

“Seemed fair.  You did it first.”

This did not put the Asset at ease.  If anything, he was squinting even more now.  “How’d you know that?”

The thing with the Asset, at least in Will’s estimation, was that he didn’t waste.  Not energy, movement, or words. He was still standing. Looming, really. Intimidation by position.  He was making Will feel small, and Will fought the urge to start babbling. He could smell the Asset now; the breeze shifted a little bit and Will could smell that chemical candy sweetness from expensive soap and deodorant.  It hit his nose wrong. He could taste it on the back of his tongue. “Just do.” He hadn’t, actually. He’d made the assumption and just let it go because what were they going to do, record the frequency between snores? But he knew for sure now.

“Why do I know you?”  It was more demand than question, sharp sounding, and the saliva in Will’s mouth dried up when the Asset asked it.  A cold knot in his stomach twisted sharply. “They called you Will. And Grada. I don’t remember either of those names.”

“Doesn’t matter why you know me.  Don’t call me Gr-... don’t call me that.”  Will’s fingers twitched for a knife he didn’t have, a gun he hadn’t handled in years, a shock stick long since put away, mag cuffs since lost.  “Go away,” Will whispered. He wasn’t trying to whisper, or sound pleading, but that was how it sounded anyway. “Just go. I’m not… I’m not HYDRA anymore, okay?  I don’t want to talk to you.”

The Asset looked at him for what felt like a year but was probably less than five seconds, and then loped off with the assured grace of a large cat.  Will waited a few seconds after that, got up from the bench, and went back to the Subway. By the time he got there, he was pale, shaking, and looked so unwell that he pleaded to go home.  Keith was actually concerned enough to let him.

Will recognized shock, in himself and in others, when he saw it.  When he felt somewhat better and a lot more charitable, he hoped that Keith never had to experience it for himself.

 

* * *

 

When Will was eighteen and fresh out of high school, he hadn’t wanted to go to college.  At least not right away. He’d been in school for thirteen years and really didn’t see the necessity of going straight back in — and getting a good portion of debt to learn that he didn’t like something as much as he thought he did seemed like a perfectly good waste of money he didn’t have.

So he talked with his mother and father and it was agreed that college could wait a year with the condition that he find a job.  This suited everyone involved, and Will even agreed to help his two younger sisters with their homework when the new school year started.

But he still didn’t know what he wanted to do.  He was only eighteen, and it felt unreasonably unfair to demand he know what he wanted to do for the rest of his life — even with the temporary break of a year.  And Will couldn’t really picture himself working at, say, McDonald’s or Subway, or as a cashier somewhere. It might look good on a resume but it didn’t feel right to him.

What else was there to do?  He supposed he could try some sort of volunteer work, too.  It still counted — his father had said, so no one was going to kick him out of the house for that.  And that seemed closer, somehow. He could do a lot of good with that, he kept telling himself. And he really did want to do some good.

Three weeks into summer break, while he was babysitting his youngest sister, he wandered onto _Craig’s List_ to see the jobs listed there.  The first one was for women and for ‘a discreet oral fetish series’ and he rapidly started losing hope for the entire site after that, intriguing as that title was to him.  A bunch followed after that either involving porn or for a variety of jobs that all needed two years experience.

But there was one, posted three days ago and buried under all the beggars for porn actresses, for security work.  Didn’t require any experience — they’d train for the job. They had full benefits after three months. Paid well. International, too, and they could send you to other countries to do work.

Will wasn’t stupid about it.  He looked up the company, researched it a little.  And they were real and they were hiring. Oh, he didn’t think he’d get any really cool assignments right away; it was probably all grunt work and probably organizing files for forever.  He was probably going to figure out what he wanted to do and go to university and become a big success and so on, so forth, etc. etc. etc. But this was real and it wasn’t being a ‘sandwich artist’.

He probably wasn’t going to get the job, but it was worth a shot, right?

So, with the seven year old across the room trying to talk about the Disney movie she was watching, he sent in his kind of pathetic resume and a spot-written cover letter.  Twenty minutes later, Will forgot about it entirely because he and his sister had heard an ice cream truck’s jingle and they were out of the house like they were shot out of a cannon.

Three days after that, he got a call for an interview.  It was all very professional. They discussed his education, and he explained his reasons for not pursuing post secondary education yet.  The interviewer, a man named Morgan Aldstone, was very understanding about it. They had a scholarship program for employees, he was told, and they actively encouraged said employees to pursue their educational goals because an educated employee was a happy employee, and happy employees were loyal.

They liked lifetime employees.  They’d do whatever they could to keep them, because loyalty meant they could be trusted.  What they did was supplied security for scientists, laboratories, researchers, even politicians.  People who were going change the world. Trust and loyalty were things they needed.

Was that something he wanted?

And three days after that he was very much employed.  His family celebrated with a nice dinner cooked on the barbecue.

 

* * *

 

Between the shock of meeting the Asset face to face and the amount of hours he’d been working, going home early on Monday actually landed him three days of being legitimately sick and unable to go anywhere at all.  He mostly lived on off-brand chicken broth, tea of questionable origin obtained from a dollar store and made in a saucepan, and sitting in his shower or laying in his bed. With the long-standing habit of lying to himself so forcefully he actually started to believe it (started in his previous occupation and continued in his subsequent incarceration) he decided that he was feeling better enough to actually show up for his Friday shifts.  Which meant Thursday night was relatively wide open.

First up, he obtained a chair from a consignment store.  It was wood and meant for a dining table, but he had a chair now.  Actual furniture. His first piece! His grandmother would've been proud.  Or not. She'd had very expensive things before she passed on, and wrapped them all in plastic for reasons he wasn't quite sure of.  This chair wouldn't have fit with the flower-pattern couch or her china cabinet filled with china that had never known the touch of food.  But he could sit in a chair and he was pleased.

The second thing he did was dust the floors of his kitchen nook and the bathroom.

Most people would've mopped them, and to be fair?  Will did that first. They were very clean before he decided to dust them, in fact.  But when they were dry — completely dry — he dusted them over with unscented talcum powder that he obtained from the same dollar store he'd gotten the tea.  It was a very light dusting over the lino, and Will nodded to himself when he was done. He could barely see it and he was looking. Monday night he'd been too sick, and Tuesday he'd laid it on a little more thickly than necessary.  He got the hang of it now, though. Unless you were looking very closely indeed, you wouldn't see the white powder on the off-white flooring. And even if you did, by chance, see it? It was easy to assume it was just a pattern or texture.

The dusting paid off within ten days of him taking time off for self care.

At three in the morning, there was a yelp and a thump in his kitchen, and Will immediately sat up.  He'd been startled out of a deep sleep but the ingrained habit of waking up with most faculties intact held true.  Thank whatever gods were listening. He got up, moved the five-odd feet to the light switch, and snapped it on.

On his kitchen floor there was a man.  Curled up into a fetal position and holding his head.  Talcum powder was a mean fucking substance; it had the magical ability to turn already smooth surfaces into something Spider-man would've had trouble gripping on, and this little baby agent was certainly not Spider-man.  Will tilted his head and looked over him. Shorter than he was, leaner than he was, wearing all black. And it looked like he'd hit his head pretty hard. Will stalked over, grabbed him by his collar, and dragged the poor man into the slightly safer territory of Not His Kitchen.  He even lifted him up and sat him in the only chair he had in the entire place before giving his head a quick-over. The agent, whoever he was, made some mild token resistance but looked like he was thoroughly expecting to be dragged into Room 101 for a few rounds of torture. He had developed what he evidently thought was a steely look.  Will blessed his little baby agent heart.

Will also just kind of mentally rolled his eyes, utterly uninterested in playing stupid games just before dawn.  He had to work in five hours, goddammit. "Stay there, don't fucking move. You work for SHIELD or HYDRA? CIA? FBI?  CSIS? NCA? MSS? Stop me if I guess it."

The man stayed silent.  Of course he did. The steely look became more determined and-slash-or resembling a case of serious constipation.  Will briefly wondered if he was obligated to keep him if he didn't have a home at a letter agency. It was what you did with cats, after all.  They got in, you kept them. Will got a bag of peas from his freezer (being careful on his own floor), wrapped it in a towel, and delivered it to the silent agent.  When the other didn't move to take it, Will slapped it on his noggin, and then took the agent's own arm and made him hold on to it himself. He wasn't going to babysit, for fuck's sake.

"RIGHT!  I GIVE NO FUCKS WHO'S LISTENING.  I GOT AN INJURED AGENT SITTING IN MY CHAIR AND I'M TIRED OF HIM.  SOMEONE PICK HIM UP." Will called to the room in general, trusting the bugs to do their goddamn jobs and broadcast to whoever was listening that he was actually talking.  "DON'T COME IF YOU DON'T OWN HIM, I DON'T WANT DRAMA IN MY APARTMENT." There, done. The announcement was made.

Still, he didn't expect an immediate response.  So he got started stripping the agent, who still wasn't talking, of his weaponry.  A good thump to the goose egg on his skull made him stop resisting, mostly, and Will got two knives, a baton, and his gun.  He put them all on the far side of the room. "These are mine now. The baton is mine because you woke me up on a work night, the knives are mine because you broke in in the first place, and the gun?  The gun is mine because you have a bag of my vegetables on your head and I can't eat fucking concussion peas. You may have them back," Will pointed at him, "in three days, in daylight hours, when I am home.  You are going to give me a sincere apology." He paused for a moment. "And ten dollars for the peas," he added. "Because I'm charging you a lot of interest on my vegetable loans."

Finally, finally, the baby agent looked outraged enough to spit nails.  "You can't —!"

"Can.  Did. Suck it up, Cupcake.  Argue again, and I'm taking your boots and socks."  Will leaned against the wall, crossed his arms, and glared.  His version of a steely gaze was much more practiced, and he definitely won.  The agent in question started to pout. Will was perfectly fine with the silence that followed.

The knock at the door was still a relief, though.  Will wanted to go back to bed. Still watching the agent, Will edged over to the door and opened it.

And that was Captain America.   _Jesus_.

"Oh, for fuck's sake."  Will squinted up at him, then looked at the man in the chair.  "Hey, it's that Cap guy. You want to go with him or do I actually have defend your dumb ass?"

The agent looked up, startled, "Oh.  Uh. ...yeah, okay, he's good, I'm good, I'll leave with him."

Captain America, meanwhile, tried to take a step into the apartment.  Will immediately blocked him. "No. You stay in the hallway, you 'roided up ultimate frisbee hipster bitch.  I don't want you in my apartment. Both of you, get lost. Now."

Steven Rogers, all dressed up in his very tailored uniform, gawped at him.  He opened and closed a couple of times before he actually managed to say a whole word.  "What." But Will was pretty much out of every last one of his fucks, so the second the agent (Will briefly wondered if he even had a name) rushed out into the hall, he closed the door in Captain America's gobsmacked face and locked it.  Lights out. He was going back to bed.

Fuck this spy drama bullshit.

He heard, faintly, the lil’ agent whine.  “He took my gear! He said I have to come back an apologize for breaking in before he’ll give it back!”  
  
Even more faintly, Will was pretty sure he heard Captain America frown.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for those that beta'd for me: Kitt3nz (because I can't seem to manage to put spaces where they should be) and Triskaideka (for your kindness).


	3. Puppy Love

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Will yells at children.

“And he really never came back for them?”  Joy snorted over the phone that Will’d picked up from the corner store earlier that day.  
  
“Seriously, I just have all his shit now.  Gun, knives, baton. Hell, I’m carrying the baton right now.  Spring loaded. Not electrified but I guess I can’t have all my dreams come true at once.  Must be nice to be able to waste the government’s money like that, though.” Will laughed. “But you should check out the rounds in the gun.  Must be relatively new - they weren’t using these before the whole prison thing.”  
  
“Probably ICER rounds.  Started getting common for their more shitty agents to carry around a few years ago.  I guess they were worried they were gonna shoot themselves in the dick or something. Anyway, I’m supposed to invite you to a barbeque so we can all make fun of you for getting caught and eat rare hamburgers.”  
  
“Rare ground meat is gross.  Steaks, though, that’s the stuff.  Throw in some hot dogs if there’s no steaks.  Real hot dogs, not tofu or whatever the fuck. You know the kind.  Beer mustard, too. Get some of that, and I’m in.” Will pulled the keys out of his pocket, put them in the door, and turned it.  
  
The door swung open while Joy chattered merrily about who was going to be there (it wasn’t a HYDRA event, but she didn’t exactly have friends outside of work since everyone else was scared of her god-awful ferrets so it was a HYDRA event anyway).  She also told him to bring the gun and the ammunition, on the off-chance it actually was something new. Will, however, only saw two men. Tall, both of them. T-shirts and jeans and new shoes that were too white. One had a handgun. It was levelled at Will.  The other had a can of red spray paint. Will knew it was red because it was coating one of his walls in swirls that was pretty much just a mess of nothing. The window above his fire escape was broken, glass on the floor.They stared at him.  He started to grin.

“Joy, you precious, shining _star_ !  Is this a present?  I’ve got two people in my apartment.  Are they from you? Is it my birthday?”  
  
“Nope, not from me.  I’ll send someone over.  Or you want your new SHIELD buddies to do it?”  The last bit was said very sarcastically. Will purposefully ignored it.

“No need.  Oh, actually, I can’t run like I used to.  Can you get someone outside the window so neither of them can get out?”

Both of the men - older teenagers, really, if Will had to guess; around Keith’s age - looked at each other.  He wasn’t following the script. He wasn’t scared, wasn’t looking anything but utterly gleeful. And this was with a gun pointed at him.  “Dude. Shut the fuck up and get on the ground!”

“Oh, sure.  I’ll send a truck in ten to clean up the mess.”

“Joy, sweetie, darling, sugar, star-of-my-sky?  Thank you. Would you mind if I hang up? I need to teach a pair of chaotic little assholes _where order comes from_.”  Without waiting for a response, he clicked the flip phone closed, and pulled the baton off his belt with his free hand.  It was the extendable kind, after all. He wasn’t giving it back after this. Will was a bit attached now.

 

* * *

 

When Will was twenty-one, he met the girl of his dreams.  
  
Okay, this might have been a slight exaggeration, but the emphasis was on the word _slight_ .  By this point he’d proven himself just barely enough to be something resembling trusted.  Not super trusted, but trusted just enough that no one was worried about it either. He’d met a team he was going to be working with, and the next step from there was to second in charge, and then command his own team, and then maybe?  Maybe a _STRIKE_ team.  He’d learned the value of patience.  
  
But that was beside the point.   _His_ team was immediately like long-lost siblings of his.   _She_ was on another team, and they came into contact several times.  She was blonde, and had eyes that were brown but in more romantic moments (i.e. after a little too much to drink but not enough for him to shut his whore mouth) he referred to as amber and silk.  His questions turned from ‘are we doing the right thing’ towards a little more selfish. ‘Is she single’ and ‘Do you think she’d like me?’ were featured prominently. The rest of his team were older, more experienced, and two were married and three had kids.  But they didn’t understand love like this! How could they? He was pining for her attention!  
  
He asked her out when the two teams (and two others) were knee-deep in the sludge and slime of a recently melted swamp.  He was pretty sure he was more mosquito-bite than man, and semi-sure that every plant he encountered was some sort of mutant poison ivy because they were all very unfamiliar and pretty much every single one had touched him.  His boots were filled with water. He couldn’t feel his feet. And under the theory that he was going to die of some awful swamp disease or hypothermia or _both_ he’d asked Olivia out.  
  
She hadn’t immediately said no, which gave him hope, and then she’d said sure.  Which wasn’t the most romantic agreement in history, but that was what he got for asking in a fucking swamp.

His team had declared “fucking _finally_ ” and celebrated with intense application of bug-bite spray when they stopped.

They’d dated for three months.  Olivia got tapped for a STRIKE position.  A few weeks later she said she was too busy, now.  And besides, there were other people. They knew her better already.  They had secrets they couldn’t share. And besides _that_ , she didn’t want to be exclusive with anyone, _hadn’t_ been exclusive with anyone.  All this was said in a brutally efficient fashion.  She didn’t stick around after, or look behind when she left, and Will figured that was as good an indication as any that she’d meant every word.

He’d went and sat beside his commanding officer two hours later.  They companionably ate lunch in silence. And then Will looked up at him.  “Olivia broke up with me. I want to hurt something.”

They went back to eating lunch.  And then they went on a mission where Will got to win a fight.

 

* * *

 

Will was incredibly glad he wasn’t wearing his name tag at the grocery store.  He’d grabbed one randomly, as they all did except for the people who had ones that were actually imprinted instead of written on with a marker.  Today he was ‘Stephanie’ and so far no one had even noticed. Stephanie - the real one - was quitting in a couple days, and she was a university student so she didn’t care anyway.  
  
He was mostly glad because a woman had been shouting, insulting, and belittling everything about him for the last ten minutes because she wanted a very specific kind of mayonnaise that he was pretty sure didn’t actually exist in real life, and knew for a fact that the store didn’t carry if it did.  She had three children, all under the age of seven. They were running around like little maniacal monkeys. He was pretty sure that they’d stab people if he gave them knives. One had already bitten him. He considered, very briefly, if there were any crates with breathing holes in the back. Probably next to the mythical mayonnaise.  
  
“Go into the back and _look_ you stupid dropout!  God, I can’t believe I have to waste my time putting up with trash like _you_ !  Shopping here is a nightmare!  A living nightmare! You can’t do anything right!  I’m going to complain to corporate about this! No one this slow should even be _alive_ !  Hurry up, can’t you see I have kids?!”  
  
Will looked her dead in the eye and used his best calming voice which never actually calmed a single person down before.  “Yes, ma’am. We all make mistakes, don’t we?”  
  
He made his escape while she worked that out and started screaming loud enough that Will was mildly concerned about the integrity of the storefront windows.

 

* * *

 

“Keith.  Seriously.  Stop being a nice guy, and just say the words.  Let the insult flow forth from you.” Will was a patient teacher and while he wasn’t exactly the best at coming up with quick and witty responses, Keith (whose voice had finally started settling) was far worse.  And, much to Will’s irritation he felt kind of responsible for the kid who was getting picked on in school. “Look, uh. Jesus. What science class do you do? Do you even do science?”  
  
“Biology.”  He looked a little pained by that, and Will didn’t blame him.    
  
“Okay, so, you say something like ‘you’re the reason why the gene pool needs lifeguards’.  Or that it needs a little chlorine. It doesn’t have to be intellectual, it just needs to be a verbal bitch slap.”  
  
“Still.”  Keith looked unsure, and shifted uneasily from foot to foot.  The roots were showing in his day-glo orange hair, Will noticed.  He was making up for it with his terrible taste in body-spray.  
  
Will pinched the bridge of his nose.  “Okay, look. If they give you trouble, if they give you any more trouble, don’t tell the principal, the teachers, the guidance counsellors, the peer support mentors, the nurse, the school chaplain, your cat, the newspapers, or social media.  Tell _me_ .  I’ll take care of it.”  
  
“How would _you_ take care of it?”  Keith sounded disbelieving, which was understandable because he was limping around a freaking Subway shop and gnawing on a cookie in the back occasionally.  
  
“I was in prison for a while, and I used to be in HYDRA.  I’ll take care of it.”

Keith’s eyes went wide.  And then he nodded, smiling a little with a hint of admiration.  That was exactly the wrong kind of reaction - he should have been cringing back.  Will glared at him and went to get the mop.

 

* * *

 

“...Keeeeith,”  Will was using his best big-brother voice, this time to demand answers instead of irritate.  He didn’t want to use the information extraction voice, but he absolutely would if necessary.  It wasn’t like his supervisor would be a particularly tough case; he was pretty sure he’d break if denied access to his phone for twenty minutes.  “I hate to ask this of anyone who’s in charge of my shift, but did you know there’s a really creepy pack of people from your high school that’s… staring at me?”  
  
“Uh.  Yeah…”  The kid was turning a little red and typically Will would be enjoying it but this was kind of focused on him and he absolutely did not like that at all.  
  
“Why.”

“I maybe… kinda… told them your were in prison and in HYDRA and they wanted to see you.”

“Oh my fucking god, Keith.”  Will exhaled sharply. He considered murdering Keith, and not for the first time.

“It’s kind of not that big a deal!”

“It _kind of_ is!  I’m _kind of_ not in the business of recruiting for a skully hexapus and the marketing fuckmonkeys who figured it was the best symbol for changing the fucking world!  You know who’s going to come in here demanding why suddenly I’ve started creating a freaking entry office for HYDRA child soldiers?! The fucking Avengers, and they’re all assholes, okay?!  Assholes with a grudge against HYDRA _and I was fucking HYDRA, Keith_!”  Will suddenly realized they were arguing in front of the crowd, who’d all become very silent and interested in what was happening.

Will decided enough was enough.  “If you’re not going to buy a sub, get out.  Stop loitering and go to school!”  
  
“It’s Saturday!”  Someone, younger than the rest by the sound of them, called from somewhere in the center of the crowd.  The tone was one of mild insult and medium confusion.

“ _GO TO SCHOOL!"_

 

* * *

 

They were back on Sunday.  Will was so utterly disgusted by the entire situation he considered going on break and never coming back.  At least they were talking among themselves this time, and actually ordering food. They stared at him a lot but otherwise didn’t give him the weirdly horrifying star treatment of the previous day.  That was an… improvement? Sure. An improvement.  
  
He was waiting for a pizza sub to come out of the toaster when one of the kids looked at him.  “You ever… you know… you ever hurt someone?” The kid had murky green eyes and smelled so strongly of the exact same body spray Keith used that Will was pretty sure there visible waves of it coming off of him.  Like a cartoon or something. He could feel a headache behind his right eye begin to spark up.  
  
“Yeah.  You want lettuce?”

“Were they okay?”  
  
“Kid, I will not let you turn into the Tuna Cheese Man.  Consider this mentoring, okay? Go through the vegetables, don’t be distracted.  Get through the sauces. Pay. Don’t be Tuna Cheese Man. Tuna Cheese Man is a very bad person whose only use in life is to serve as a warning to others.  Lettuce. Do you want it.” Will paused for a single heartbeat of time. “Choose the next words that will come out of your mouth carefully.”

Wholly unlike Tuna Cheese Man, the teen actually paid attention when Will told him to deal with his sandwich issues, and that was (in Will’s sad little world) very satisfying.  At the till, after the kid paid, Will rewarded this behavior. “Yeah, I’ve hurt people.”

“Could… look, there’s these guys at school.  They go after Keith, too, sometimes…”  
  
Will rubbed his forehead.  Of course. Of course they’d ask that, because Keith couldn’t keep his goddamn mouth shut and now the offer was _out there._  “Okay, look.  You want to win a fight?  You win the fight so that you win every fight after that.  You goddamn _crush_ them and make sure that they don’t ever have the guts to look you in the eye again.  Okay? Forget ‘eye for an eye’. That’s quitter talk. They take your eye, you take both eyes and a limb from their dominant side.  That’s how you win fights, okay? By winning that first fight so hard there’s never another fight.”  
  
“I don’t think that’s advice the Avengers would give.”  
  
“Think about the name.  They avenge, kiddo. They’re not the action in the physics formula, they’re the reaction.  I ain’t telling you to start the fight. That’d be wrong, so on, so forth. What I’m telling you is that no matter who started it, _you_ finish it.   _If_ there’s a threat, you take out the threat before it becomes a problem for you.  You use words, you use physical force, you use whatever you gotta use.”

The kid mulled this over and Will was suddenly aware of the silence in the shop.  A bunch of kids with a bunch of phones should never be that quiet, and he looked up.  He saw a sea of bright eyed and bushy tailed faces watching him. Well, maybe not a sea.  Maybe a small pond. He suddenly realized that everyone was listening to him, and he reared back.  “...oh, Christ, no. No, I am not adopting all of you. Get out! Go to school!”  
  
“It’s… it’s Sunday...”  
  
“ _GO TO SCHOOL, GODDAMMIT!_ ”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to my wonderful beta readers, again. You guys put up with so much of my nonsense. Triskaideka and Kitt3nz, thank you thank you thank you.
> 
> Uragani, don't ever stop being amazing and may your garden always grow.


	4. Birthdays and Language

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Will sticks Captain America with his bar tab.

Keith stared down at the flip phone that sat on the table in the back room of the Subway.  He poked it with a finger, and it reacted in absolutely no interesting ways. Will stared at it as well, but he had a far more gloomy expression across his face, and he kept his arms tightly crossed over his chest.  “Well. I mean, if you sister knows your mom’s number, and you know your sister’s number, why not just… call her? It would probably work better than going through every single number one at a time until you hit on it.  That’d take like… ten thousand years, probably.” The kid didn’t want to do the math, but it seemed like a large enough number to encompass how long it would take.

Will sighed.  “Because my sister probably doesn’t want to talk to me.  None of my sisters would. Neither do my parents. In fact, I’m pretty sure my entire extended family would love to see me hung from a lamp post.”  He sighed. “A lot of them are cops or authority figures in various capacities. The honest kind, not the HYDRA kind. And the ones that aren’t would probably want to do it on principle.”

“I like how you used to be some badass HYDRA and you’re still a chicken-shit who won’t call his mom for her birthday.”  Keith rolled his eyes. Will reminded himself that he could bring his relatively unused baton to work and probably drown Keith in pickle brine and still make it look like an accident somehow.

Will picked up his phone and flipped the kid off, who got an incredibly smug face on his dumb punk face - he stepped out to the front to help a customer, and Will dialled numbers.  Last time he’d called, he’d been in prison. Josiana, his older sister, had run away from home long before Will had joined the security company that was a front for HYDRA. She didn’t speak to their parents often, but did put in the effort to have their current contact information just in case.  She’d never been able to adequately explain why she ran away from home and claimed she never figured it out herself - it was just something that she needed to do. Something that was _required_.  These days she had a small farm somewhere up in Canada where she grew who the hell knew what for who the hell knew who.

Will figured it was a conflict of personalities.  Sort of. Josiana and their parents had never gotten along.  They were both stubborn as mountains, and Josie was just never good with people in general.  She had no interest in getting a secondary education. And once Josie had started fighting with their parents, the fight never really _ended_ until she gave up and walked out one day.  Thinking it over, though, he also suspected that it was more than that.  His parents were never abusive, but it seemed to Will that they had simply never particularly _liked_ their oldest child no matter what she did.  Eventually the atmosphere went from unpleasant to rancid - he didn’t blame her for ditching out.  
  
But Josie would, occasionally, speak with _him_ because at one point they’d been incredibly close.  Even if she didn’t want to talk, like he’d told Keith, Josie still _would_ .  She never once offered to help him out - in prison or once he got out - but at the same time he knew that said help would be instantaneous if it was requested.  They could go a couple of years without talking and the relationship would be exactly where it was. The conversations were terse, typically, and Josie despised small talk.  And she hated being called Josie, preferred _Jo_ , so Will called her Josie whenever it was possible.  She preferred text messages. So Will phoned. The small talk thing he agreed with, though, so he kept that to the absolute minimum.  
  
“Hey, Josie.  I need mom’s number.”  He said as soon as the phone was answered.  
  
“Hold on, I’ll get ‘em.”  There was a distinctive male voice on the other end, and it was a good thing the flip phone was of average sturdiness because Will found himself gripping it like he was the Asset with that motherfucking soda can, just less wet and sticky.

“Who the hell what the fuck who the hell are you?”  Will thought it was said sincerely, if not particularly coherently.  But whoever it was was already walking away, phone in hand, and calling for Jo- _hun_ and Will found himself wondering if a shovel _talk_ meant more coming from someone who had performed shovel _actions_.

Theoretically yes, but in practicality it was likely no.  Pity.

There was some male and female mumbling for a moment before the phone in question was handed over.  “What.”  
  
“Josie, who the hell was that and do I need eat his heart.”

“You’re not allowed to eat his heart, he’s mine.  Also he’s my husband and I’m due in a month so you’re obligated not to kill him until the baby can do farm chores.  Unless he runs. Then you can kill him.”  
  
This was a lot of information to be taken at once and Will showed remarkable restraint by swearing quietly enough that most other customers probably wouldn’t be able to hear him.  He was proud of that. He was going to get a cookie for himself after his shift for that. “When. Who.” He thought for a moment. “And will you need it to look like an accident?”  
  
“Probably, Eddie, last week.”  Josie answered in reverse order, and very promptly.  “Mom and Dad don’t know yet about the wedding or the baby… they might know Eddie exists.  I don’t know. You got something write with handy? I’ll give you their number. You want a call when the kid’s born?  It’s a girl.”  
  
Usually when he got a feeling in his stomach, it was cold, knotted, and squirming.  Like something alive and awful buried in his guts. This was warmer, uncurling - soft like a cat’s tail.  Josie would be a good mother. Not like their mother, but a good one. She’d tear the throat out of anyone who tried to keep that kid - his niece! - down.  He wasn’t too thrilled to find out that she’d gotten married without telling anyone but especially him, but it was semi-sorta-maybe-a-little-bit forgivable with this bright and shining piece of news.  “Yeah. Yes. Please.”  
  
Information given, information received.  They hung up at about the same time.

Will walked out into the main room of the Subway and stood there a moment.  Then he broke out into a bright, shining, glorious smile. Which didn’t even dim when Keith complained it was creepy.

 

* * *

 

He waited until he was in a bar with nachos and a beer to call his mother.  He didn’t want to do this in front of people he knew, or the bugs in his apartment.  Which he really needed to get around to doing something about, to be perfectly fucking honest, but it wasn’t like they didn’t know about each other and Will didn’t see any point in talking to himself so they weren’t getting anything on either side.  Besides. Dive bar nachos were a great celebration food.

He hesitated over the piece of paper, unfolding it from his pocket.  He smoothed it out several times over the table, and then stared at it for a moment.  It had to be today - tonight - because late birthday wishes didn’t mean jack _shit_ coming from people like him.  His mother would figure he was getting wasted on various recreational pharmaceuticals, probably.  Or in bed with three beautiful hookers and a fuck load of liquor. Which, to be fair, would be a perfectly pleasant way to spend the evening but alas it was not to be, and at least he had nachos.

His hands were sweating while he dialed.  It rang a couple times before his mother picked up.  Answered “hello?” and he swallowed hard and wiped his other hand on the leg of his pants because this was harder than he thought it would be.  He was afraid to say anything because what if she didn’t want to talk to him?  
  
“H-hey.  Hey Mom. Happy birthday.”  Will mentally sighed at the momentary stutter he didn’t quite manage to hide.  
  
There was a pause on the other end and his stomach clenched up, so cold and frosted over he wasn’t absolutely sure he wasn’t going to throw up.  
  
“What do you want, William.”  She only used his full name if she wasn’t feeling particularly friendly.  If he was in trouble. And she said it as a statement, not a question.

“Just… just wanted to wish you a happy birthday.”  Will didn’t like how his voice had shrunk, somehow.  He sounded like Keith, when he still had the high-pitch of a young teenager.  Thin and tumbling and child-like. Lost little boy in the woods. The bar suddenly smelled abhorrent to him.  Sweat and old beer and bleach and grease.  
  
“Thank you.  You’ve done that.  Please don’t call again; I thought we made it really clear in the letter that we didn’t want to talk to you.”  
  
“I-I-I just…  I didn’t think…”  
  
“That’s part of your problem.  You never _do_.”  And his mother hung up, just like that.  The line went dead, and Will was left sitting in the booth alone in the bar, with his beer and nachos and the phone at his ear with no one on the other end.

The nachos ended up tasting like dust, and he tore the paper up into thin shreds and then into confetti.

 

* * *

 

The next day he went into Subway like nothing happened.  Nothing had happened, really. He called his mom, his mom didn’t want to talk.  Nothing happened. He would keep telling himself that. He could totally make sandwiches and wash trays and stare into the little bin of black olive slices like they held the mystery to everything.  Nothing happened. Everything was normal.  
  
Yup.  
  
And ten minutes after school let out, the teenagers were back and Will gave up any hope of the day being normal, because he was pretty goddamn certain these weren’t normal kids.  
  
“No.  Go away, all of you.”  He tried to shoo them out, but they didn’t pay any attention to what he wanted them to do.  Instead, they wanted stories. HYDRA antics. They wanted him to teach them how to fight or whatever.  They were very insistent, and refused the alternative offer that Will suggested - which was to learn how to make a sandwich.  He supposed he didn’t blame them for that.

“Don’t you people have better things to do?  Homework, after school jobs, whatever?” Will glared around at the lot of them, but they were immune to it by now and he was less than impressed.  
  
“Actually, can we interview you for the school newspaper?  Time in HYDRA?” It was a blue haired girl that Keith had indicated he had a crush on.  The method of this indication was that he literally ran into a wall by staring at her and the fact he damn near swallowed his tongue.  Will thought it was kind of cute considering the amount of dumb.  
  
But now he was pretty sure the girl was not cute, now she was being annoying.  Just like every other teenager that swooped on him because if Keith’s goddamn mouth.  “No. Go away. Go to school or…” Shit, what did kids do after school? “Go to … church.  Go to church. You probably need it, since you’re willingly trying to talk to me. All of you!  Blue hair girl is taking you to church! Follow the blue haired girl!”  
  
He was promptly ignored by the general mass and he sighed heavily.  The potential reporter just kind of stared at him. “So… yes?”  
  
“ _KEITH COME DEAL WITH THIS!_ ”

 

* * *

 

Leslie and Russ were irritatingly late getting to the bar, and Joy wasn’t coming because of a ‘previous engagement’ which he assumed meant washing her ferrets or something equally awful.  So he sat in silence at their usual table and got his first beer. His limit was three. It wasn’t enough to get him drunk, but it was a good number to get without hurting his finances. He suspected Russ was probably late because of whatever sports game was on television, and that Leslie was late because he was trying to pry Russ away from it.

A couple of bodies blocked his light, and then slid into the booth.  One across, one beside. They were not who he was expecting and he wondered about his odds if he cracked his beer across Captain America’s face and tried to squirm out from the booth.  The odds, he decided, were complete shit.  
  
As far as intimidation was concerned, they had it in spades and evidently had nothing better to do with their time.  At least he and the Asset weren’t wearing uniforms.

Will sighed.  “Have you considered fucking off and leaving me alone?  Because I’m pretty sure harassing me is a really shitty hobby.  And, frankly, you both look like you should get into crochet work.  Or teaching inner-city school kids to just say no, or that abstinence is somehow great.  Something that’s not near me.”  
  
Rogers looked startled.  The Asset, lovely man that he was, did the resting-bitch-face thing he had so Will couldn’t tell if he’d pissed him off or if he didn’t care or what was going on.  That was fine, they probably weren’t going to kill him in public. Probably. There was a not-unreasonable chance he’d get out of this alive. He took a pull of his beer and considered his options.

“Right, well.  What do you people…”  he indicated with the bottle in a lazy, unworried way to their general directions, “want?  As you can tell, I’m incredibly busy but I’m willing to dispense with my various activities for the sake of chatting with you gentlemen for a few minutes.”  Because he was going to look particularly stupid if he tried to climb over Rogers, or under the table; neither of those things would work and he’d rather not make the attempt in public.

“We just want to talk.”  Rogers smiled that smarmy, innocent smile of his that he gave to the media and probably any individual he wanted to get into bed with him.  It said _being completely honest and caring here_ and Will figured he probably practiced it in mirrors in his off time.  He didn’t trust it. “You can call me Steve.” And he even held out his hand for Will to shake.  
  
Will, for some goddamn reason, put his half-empty beer bottle in Steve’s hand, and tried to think of what idiotic line of action led him to do that.  Then he took the bottle back and actually shook the super soldier’s hand - which was now unpleasantly moist from condensation. “Yeah, I’m not calling you that.  I don’t want to call you Steve. You’re Frisbee Hipster Bitch in my head. Think of it as a code name. Except not, because I actually call you that. So, my parole officer send you to check up on me because of the whole hanging-with-HYDRA thing?  Susannah’s a real fucking stickler.” He took another pull on his beer to hide his face for a second, and then raised his hand towards the single waitress, who saw it, nodded, and went to get the table a round. No one was getting drunk, but there was a lot of evidence to eating and drinking together and social bonding.  
  
And while Will wasn’t inclined to bond with anyone over a beer, he was happy to let them bond with _him_ because the alternative was less comfortable.

“Yeah!  She was concerned, you know?”  Rogers smiled again and nodded.  The Asset got a sharper look on his face, like he was suspicious of something.  And he had every right to be because Will was panicking just a tiny bit inside, and he bit his tongue.

He didn’t have a parole officer.  He’d refused it when it was offered, and he got out when he was meant to get out.  But here was an Avenger and a half and they were using said non-existent person as a mild threat.  And Rogers did it all with that smile, that media smile, on his face like it was perfectly fine and okay and he wasn’t lying through his perfectly white, perfectly straight teeth.  And that meant Rogers _could not and never could be trusted_ .  And, by extension, the rest of them because he was their spokesman, mouthpiece, and smile.  
  
It felt unfair.  Out of every Avenger and every person involved in SHIELD, he should’ve been the trustworthy one.  
  
“Right, well, does it really need both of you?  I really don’t like either of you, but the Asset there-” he noticed them both flinch when Will said the title.  “What?”  
  
“Bucky.”  Rogers said.  
  
“Barnes.”  The Asset said at the same time.  
  
“What?”  Will stared at both of them like they’d grown some extra heads and were just the sort of spokespeople HYDRA should’ve hired for a serious marketing campaign.  
  
It was the Asset who managed to speak up first this time.  “My name. It’s Barnes. If you need to call me something, call me Barnes.”  He said it grudgingly, like he didn’t want to give his name to someone else. Not Will.  Not anyone.  
  
Will paused in the act of taking another drink of beer and blinked slowly at him.  “You got a name now? Huh.” He thought about it. Rolled the name around in his head like a marble for a moment.  “Good. If anyone deserves a fucking name, it’s you. Out of anybody, you earned yours.” And he meant it, too. The Asset had a name, and his name was Barnes.  For some reason this made Will happy in the dark little pit that was his heart, and when the waitress came over with the beers he raised his already open one. “Good on you.  Don’t hesitate to let the fuckers know they can never take it away.”

This seemed to startle them both, though Barnes was less demonstrative than Rogers was.  He just took the beer and took a long drink from it. Rogers, on the other hand, didn’t take a drink but seemed to choke off the questions for a moment.  Will kind of hoped that this killed any sort of conversational skill they had and they’d let this one die a good and honorable death. That they would go away after the beer and never darken his dive bar booth again.  
  
“So.  You left HYDRA, you said.”  Well, that killed any hope of this bullshit ending that Will had, and he glared at Rogers for speaking again.  He was oblivious. Goddamn super soldiers. “But you hang out with them.”

“You’re not HYDRA, but you’re hanging out with me.”  Will pointed out with as much sourness as he could possibly muster.  “So you can fuck right on off.”

“Language.”  Rogers, Captain America, said in a gentle sort of way that made Will think he’d dealt with a lot of children.  
  
“English, please.”  Will snapped right back.  “My Russian is rusty as shit, my German is worse, and my internet-speak is awful.  You don’t want me to swear, bring something that can beep them out. You know Stark.  He could probably make something like that in about five minutes. You seem like the type to censor shit anyway.  Also, fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck motherfucker fuck.” He paused for a moment. “And fuck.” There, that seemed an appropriate number of fucks to give.

“You done?”  Barnes’ mouth twitched a little like he was trying not to grin, and Will decided that was amusing just to watch.  Rogers, on the other hand, looked exactly as insulted as Will had hoped. He strongly suspected this conversation was going nowhere near what they wanted.

“Not even close.  But if you’re going to corner me in a bar and tell me to watch my language, I’m going to get just as obnoxious as both of you.  I am not a good person and my standards are _incredibly_ low, and by God I will drag anyone dumb enough to talk to me down into my glorious gutter.  Cheers.” Will finished his first bottle and pushed it off to the side so he could start on the next.  “Did you know Rogers here has the worst trigger discipline I’ve ever had the misfortune of seeing first hand?”

To Will’s absolutely glee, Rogers flushed and looked irritated.  “Bucky’s just as bad.”

First of all, that is a dirty lie and everyone at this table knows it.  He’s got excellent discipline and avoidance. Second of all, Barnes is a cyborg.  He gets a hard pass for a lot of shit, including non-existent trash trigger discipline.  Besides that, _he_ never almost killed me in the middle of of assfuck nowhere, and the one time he _did_ it was my own damn fault.”  Will drank a good three quarters of the bottle before setting it down.  He wiped his mouth on his sleeve and gave them both a smirk.

Then he frowned, like he was concentrating a moment.  “I have to piss. 'scuse.” Clumsily he stood up on the booth bench and clamored over the wall so that he fell into the next one, landing on his right hip and ignoring the orders to stop it.  He meandered to the bar, ordered another three beers, and then stumbled to the washroom.

He did need to piss, but he also needed to leave in a hurry and he knew the back door wasn’t alarmed or locked.

 

* * *

 

“You think he fell in the bathroom or something?  He was pretty drunk.”

“Steve, he wasn’t drunk off a beer and a half.  You’re… you’re really bad at this. I love you but you are _truly awful_ at this.”

“Wait, wha-... oh, sonofa _bitch_!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for my wonderful beta-readers. You guys rock socks, bee's knees, and cat pajamas. 
> 
> And remember kids. Don't stick people with your bar tabs. What Will did was wrong.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There's sadness in this one.

It was a clean up job.  STRIKE had been in before.  Something had been in before STRIKE and whatever it was?  It was… Well, Will didn’t have a word for it. There probably wasn’t a word for it.  Efficient came close. This was not the first time that his team was third tier clean up, and wouldn’t be the last.  Whatever swept through did so like a hurricane through tissue paper. And not everyone was dead.   
  
There was one woman, huddled together with a few other survivors, to be taken for interrogation.  She’d been beaten badly, shot probably in nothing terminal. Bleeding, unmoving, but technically alive.  Not conscious. Will knew her when she was awake and asleep, though -- it was Olivia. Blonde hair, amber and silk eyes behind closed eyelashes and long eyelashes.  She’d been a double agent for SHIELD. She wasn’t dead, but she might as well have been if she was captured here. So Will ended her. It might have been a mercy or maybe it was just quickening the inevitable but Will had done it anyway.  He didn’t stop or look back, even while the report from his sidearm echoed twice. Double tap. There were small, alarmed cries from the others who were zip-tied and cringing away.

He felt nothing then.  Blank.  _ Tabula rasa _ .  When the rest of the team came running, that’s when he lied by telling the truth.  He started off calmly. It was Olivia. It was Olivia and she had been alive and as he progressed he started getting louder, started howling in pain and rage and waving his Glock around like a man possessed, until it was gently taken from him, until he was hauled out of the room with the fresh corpse who hadn’t had a chance to say anything to him before he shot her, he shot her, he shot her, and the amber and silk eyes couldn’t see him through closed eyelids anymore.

He didn’t have nightmares that night.  He slept like he was justified. Dreamless and deep and dark.  Love had a lot of faces, he figured. Love and mercy sometimes meant that blood spattered up your suit and was washed down the drain when you showered.  He was already damned, what was one more cut into what was left of his soul?

He found out that the Winter Soldier had been that hurricane later on.  Will found it comforting in a way. At least whatever traitorous thing Olivia and the others were doing was worth sending the Winter Soldier in for.  He hoped she’d found some comfort in that.

 

* * *

Will was (at least putting some mild effort into) reading a library book in the back of the shop on his break and picking at the sandwich which he felt obligated to at least try to eat since he’d made it.  It wasn’t very good, but nothing tasted particularly good lately. Ashes, mostly. Besides, he didn’t want to get knocked on his ass with illness again. So, he ate without enthusiasm and wondered if he could just mix some cucumber and tomato together.  Would that be better?

Keith was out front.  Joking with a customer.  ‘Working hard or hardly working’ and canned laughter sort of bullshit that started those headaches behind Will’s eyes, so he was more than happy to let Keith handle it for the moment.  The registered beeped, and a moment later the door chime beeped as well. Store empty again. Will went back to unsuccessfully reading his book. Something something  _ Biology as Ideology.   _ It had looked better on the library shelf, he wasn’t going to lie to himself.

Another door beep.  Will rolled his eyes.  Well, it sounded like just the one and Keith could take care of it, and with determination Will set his mind to finish the fucking chapter, at least.  If he could get through  _ that _ he might have a chance in hell to work his way through it.

It was several minutes before he realized he didn’t hear conversation.  Didn’t hear the oven bleep an alarm that said a sandwich was inside. Didn’t hear anything at all, and that shouldn’t have been possible because there was always conversation of some kind going on, or noises, or life.  The hair on the back of his neck prickled up and Will slowly put his book down, stood up, palmed one of the knives he’d taken off that dumb baby agent that he’d never learned the name of. It had a good weight to it. Will could be silent when he wanted to be.  He’d just take a look. It was probably nothing, likely was nothing, and he could just take a look.

There were two people out front.  Keith and a stranger. Keith was white, death white, all the blood drained from his skin pale white.  It made his orange-ass hair stand out like he was the skeleton of a clown belonging to festivals past.  He was putting the money from the register into a bag. The stranger was holding a gun (a Ruger, he noted absently) and hadn’t seen Will yet.

Will saw crimson.  In spite of the strain involved in the relationship, Keith was  _ his _ .  Under  _ his protection _ .  This was not like the assclowns who’d broken in and tagged his apartment.  This was  _ far _ more fucking personal.   
  
The ledge that went along under the glass window casing that kept people from touching the lettuce was wood.  Will did not hesitate, or pay any attention to the sudden, sharp lance of pain that went through his left hip straight through the rest of him.  He  _ ran _ at the man.  Grabbed his free hand.  Slammed it onto the ledge and put his knife down through the hand there so  _ hard _ that it went clean through and wound up stuck in the wood.  

The man was screaming Will noted in a distant way.  He was very familiar with sounds that involved screaming and it didn’t bother him at all.  The goal was to get the focus off of Keith, and he had succeeded. Second objective was to disarm him.  A vicious punch to the face was all it really took to make him drop the gun and Will kicked it away.   
  
“Keith.  Drop everything and call 911.  Now.” Will watched him back away rapidly, nod, and dash around the corner.  Good.   
  
It wasn’t very nice to the knife, but it wasn’t his like the baton was.  Will grabbed the handle, and with the tip still embedded into the wood, and the blade still in the man’s hand, Will began to twist it.  Just a little bit. This screaming brought a glimmer of satisfaction with it, and Will smiled at the man. It wasn’t a very nice smile at all.

 

* * *

  
  
After a couple of weeks of relative peace and quiet where he wasn’t being harrassed by any alphabet soup agency that had more letters than sense, Will was feeling pretty chill.  This day was shaping up to be particularly good. Some nice lady at the grocery store didn’t blame him for not having any organic laundry soap, and all things considered? That was more than he expected at any given moment these days.  He was pretty much immediately suspicious of everything being okay for once.   
  
Seeing Captain America and the Winter Soldier in his apartment was only a  _ little _ bit of a shock because, frankly, Fate didn’t particularly like Will and he damn well knew it.  His hand didn’t even come off the doorknob while he looked them over. Cap fidgeted a little. He was in motion.  Constantly. Conversely, Barnes was completely still - might have well been a sculpture someone had put in the room.  Except his eyes. They weren’t cold-dead anymore, Will noticed. Like the first time they’d met, a long time ago. Were they bright and living in the bar?  The place was dim, and Will hadn’t been looking. They were alive and vital and focused on him. A thin breeze from the open window made the thin drapes flutter, and that broke the silence.   
  
“Nope.”  And Will walked out again, shutting the door behind him.   
  
There was a soft noise in the hallway as he drew his keys back out of his pocket to lock the door. They’d gotten in just fine, so they’d get out just fine.  A small noise, a throat clearing, made him look up, the keys still in his hand.   
  
There was a woman there.  The delicate, willowy type that looked like a good wind could knock her over.  Red hair and cat’s eyes. Heels and pants that looked painted on. Cream shirt, brown jacket that was open.  She didn’t have a scent he could detect from where he was, but something about her made him think that she didn’t use fragrances unless she meant for it to be sensed.  She’d walk in streams, Will thought, where it could be washed away from bloodhounds, and she wouldn’t give it a second thought.   
  
“Could you please go back inside and talk to them?”  The woman talked, and the smile became a little strained.  It wasn’t  _ really  _ a smile.  It was a baring of teeth.  A threat display. Any other person Will wouldn’t have hesitated for a second to walk by, but she made the hair on the back of his neck stand up.  That was important. And she was making a threat display. That was important as well.   
  
There were two kinds of fights.  There were the big, showy ones that proved to people you were the baddest motherfucker on the block.  It was mostly slow and obnoxious and while it hurt it rarely killed or incapacitated for very long. Two stags (or what have you) clacking their antlers together until one slunk off to sulk.   
  
The other kind of fights were the real, fast, and brutal type.  People didn’t walk away from those and the hurt from those fights lasted a lot longer.  And that was assuming you were the winner. If you were the loser of one of those fights?  Well, good luck and godspeed, you’re gonna need it.   
  
Fighting this woman, this… ?  He didn’t know. It was going to be the second kind of fight, and Will knew it, and he had a very nasty feeling in the back of his skull that he would not come out the winner of that fight.  Will watched her for another few seconds, and then nodded and scrabbled at the door. Every panic response in his grey matter was triggering off. He felt surrounded and he didn’t love it.

And then the penny dropped and he recognized her   
  
So when he managed to open the door, he didn’t look to see if Rogers or Barnes were still there.  “Nonono no no fucking no nope.” He ran across the room, regardless of the pain in his hip that was always there anyway - and took a header out the window.  It was a good thing that’s where the fire escape was.

 

* * *

“Well, I guess he recognized Natasha.”

“Did I, or did I not, say we should close the window?  Steve? Yes or no?”

“...”   
  
“Yes or no, Steve?”   
  
“...yeah.  Look, it’s too late now.  We’ll just close it when Sam brings him back.”

 

* * *

Will was standing at his kind of shitty stove with a fairly heavy frying pan, melting butter.  There were three other people in his apartment, none of which were invited. This displeased him on a fundamental level.  It was  _ his  _ bear cave, and just what the hell did they think they were all doing?  Right. They were breathing his air, watching him cook pancakes from a mix that he’d combined with more water than necessary so that the mix would last longer.  He was making enough for himself. He wasn’t going to feed a bunch of jackasses, heroes or not.   
  
Rogers spoke of first, after a lot of glancing between them that they weren’t even slightly subtle about.  “So. You should come with us. We’d like to ask you some questions.” His voice was gentle like he was pretty sure Will was a little bit slow or something.  Will didn’t exactly blame him for it, to be honest. Most of his actions had been on a sliding scale of ‘really damn dumb’ to ‘suicidally stupid’ lately.

“Fuck your questions.  Get out of my apartment.”  This had been the same response to every comment or question posed to him since a jackass with  _ wings _ literally swooped down on him  in the street and carried him to the roof.  And then he’d had to climb down the fire escape and limp back into his apartment.  Minor variations aside, the message was loud and clear and completely ignored. Will turned the heat lower and poured pancake batter into the skillet.  HYDRA, no doubt, knew they were all there. He wasn’t expecting a rescue, though. They were probably laughing at him. Again. At least Will got the satisfaction of seeing Steven Rogers’ mouth compress into a line that said he didn’t like that answer.

Barnes looked annoyed by everything, and Will wondered if he actually had a resting bitch face or if that was reserved for stupid shit like this.  It really could’ve gone either way, since Will himself was pretty fucking annoyed at this point. Oh look, they had something in common.   
  
The third person was the black guy with the wings.  He’d shamelessly taken over the only chair Will had, and he regularly rolled his eyes at anything Rogers or the Asset said.  He’d introduced himself as Sam. Will had since decided that he liked him, and that he was a jackass. These were not mutually exclusive.   
  
The woman in the hallway, who Will was absolutely fucking certain was The Black Fucking Widow, had left the building some time ago.  Will was grateful for that, because frankly he didn’t have that many beers available and he was pretty certain it was required by law that if the chick that was The Black Fucking Widow was in your apartment you gave her beer or whatever liquor was available in your living space.   
  
Apparently incredibly fed up with the same response several times over, Barnes stalked up behind him and reached for his wrist.  “Listen,  _ Grada _ , you need to start lis-” he didn’t finish the sentence.   
  
The moment that Barnes had used that nickname, that nanosecond, Will had seen absolute  _ crimson _ for the second time in the same number of weeks.  He grabbed the hot handle of the skillet without noticing the heat, and slammed it against the side of the man’s head in a swift and brutal blow.  He was stronger than he looked, and while it wouldn’t put a super soldier down or even knock him out, he did look stunned and really did yelp from the heat from the bottom of the pan.  The pancakes were on the floor now, half cooked and sticking to Barnes’ shoes. Will could feel the slamming of his heart in his mouth. “ _ I told you!  I FUCKING TOLD YOU! _ ”   
  
That was as far as he got before he was simultaneously tackled and something dark and cloth covered his head.  At least he got his shot in.

 

* * *

The chair was metal.  There was another one, empty, across the table.  The table was metal. The floor was concrete, though that one was harder to feel through his shoes.  Luckily he’d never taken those off before he’d been black-bagged. The walls were concrete except for one, which was a mirror that was probably two-way glass because it wasn’t just obvious, it was otherwise stupid to have a mirror in here.  He was wearing magnet-cuffs, and they were attached to the table. The entire place smelled like bleach but not perfectly clean. It was slightly south of sanitized, adjacent to antiseptic. The light was too high to reach, and was too white-blue to be comfortable.  It reminded him of another room, though that one lacked any furniture.

He tested the cuffs carefully.  The table moved a tiny bit - just enough of a jiggle that he could be sure it wasn’t bolted to the floor.  Heavy, though. He’d have to throw all his weight behind it to make it move. Not exactly the most helpful thing.  Still, though. Maybe. Any good testing couldn’t be done, since he was undoubtedly being watched very carefully.   
  
They hadn’t been overly cruel.  There was enough looseness to the cuffs that he could twist his hands around and they didn’t continuously press in the same spots on his wrists.  He could move his chair a bit so his elbows weren’t completely extended all the time. The back of the chair was comfortably high. He had been allowed to keep his clothes.  Little things.   
  
HYDRA's room had been slightly chilled.  Just enough to be perpetually uncomfortable.  There hadn’t been chairs, or a table, and he hadn’t worn cuffs and they hadn’t let him keep his shoes.  Or socks. Or any of his clothes at all, actually. They’d traded those for grey-green scrubs. They had been paper thin and offered no protection at all.   
  
Lacking anything better to do, Will leaned back in the chair and dozed.

 

* * *

  
  
It was Barnes that walked in first, shutting the door behind him.  Will opened one eye, and then opened both and sat up. The environment and the man both served to jumpstart Will’s adrenal glands; he could feel his stomach clench.  His heart rate rising. Things sharpened, and he found himself critically examining the face in front of him as it came closer and the body sat in the chair across from him.  Still red. He wasn’t sure if Barnes ever really bruised but if there had been any breakage in the fine, thin bones of the face he wasn’t showing it. Chemical candy sweetness, faintly, came with Barnes as it usually did.   
  
Will debated for a second and mentally shrugged.  “Hey man. You okay? Also, did you people seriously blackbag me with one of my pillow cases?  Because that’s just fucking low.”   
  
Barnes blinked, like he was surprised for a moment, and then elected to ignore the second question.  “You hit me with a hot skillet. So. No. No, I’m not okay.”   
  
“Fair enough.  But I did tell you not to call me that name, so I’m not sorry.”  Will shrugged and sat back a little.

“ _ That’s  _ why you hit me?  Because I called you that name?”  The Asset ( _ Barnes, dammit, and the name and title were not interchangeable! _ ) stared at him for a moment.  Will wasn’t sure, but he was pretty positive Barnes was unsure of what to do next.  Probably under orders of some kind that prevented him from doing things he was particularly good at.  “So why’d you throw a soda at me, then?”   
  
“Because I share an IQ equal to a brick sometimes and I panicked.”     
  
“Why?”

Will thought for a moment.  “Because you’re still breathing, and that makes you one of the most dangerous people in existence, I think.  Personal assessment, nothing official.”   
  
Barnes left the room after that.  He didn’t say anything.

Will watched him go, heart rate jacked up to a seriously unhealthy level.  The rule was to never show fear - and he might not have shown much, but even a few words were more than enough.  There would be consequences.

 

* * *

The next person to come into the room was the black guy, though he wasn’t wearing wings now.  There’d been some time between the Asset and him, and Will was starting to feel the weight of it.  His tongue stuck to the roof of his mouth. He had to piss. He wanted to sleep. Real sleep, not the scraps and dozing he’d gotten.  These sensations, at least, were familiar. Deprivation torture. So be it. “For the record, I need to use a washroom sometime soon.”

The man stared at him for a moment, like the thought hadn’t occurred to him, and then he looked at the silvery, mirrored wall.  But he turned back to Will and nodded. “Okay. The cuffs stay on, though.”   
  
Will decided that was a more-than acceptable compromise and nodded.

 

* * *

Having solved his most immediate and pressing need, Will was sat back in the room feeling a full third better physically and a lot worse mentally.  The place, wherever it was, was clearly a rabbit warren and there was no way in hell he was finding the way out. Not that he’d thought he  _ could _ , even a little bit, but knowing it was just… worse.   
  
In any case, Sam - he’d introduced himself again while Will was giving himself a quick shake off and awkwardly zipping himself up - sat across from him again.  He didn’t say anything. Neither did Will. Eventually Will started dozing off.

“You know who has you, right?”  Sam asked the question, and Will snapped awake.  Like a lightbulb.   
  
“Who gives a shit who you are?  You’re all the same in the end.”   
  
“What’s that supposed to mean?”   
  
“Dark, light… what’s the difference when you can’t see in either extreme?”   
  
He didn’t say anything else and eventually Sam left as well.  He wasn’t sure how long that had lasted, honestly. Time was getting soft around the edges, like what always happened when there wasn’t some way of marking it.  Meals, changes in the light. Something. Without those signals, things started to get a little weird.

Will dozed off again.

 

* * *

“I think,”  Sam said slowly, “we aren’t looking at a level of comfort here.  I think he just actually doesn’t care. I think he’s expecting the worst is yet to come.  You heard what he said.”

 

* * *

He woke up again, and Rogers was sitting across from him this time.  Will frowned a little; he should’ve woken up when the door opened, and he hadn’t.  That fact bothered him. There was a plastic cup of water just within reach of his hands, but the cuffs wouldn’t let him grab it.  He would’ve just been able to touch it with the very tips of his middle fingers. Will didn’t try, and didn’t look at it past the first glance.  He focused somewhere over Rogers’ right shoulder.   
  
Rogers was looking at him.  Will shrugged back. Silence stretched.   
  


“The Asset.”  Will spoke first, in a tone that conveyed mild curiosity.  Rogers stopped, and started getting a little colour. The tightness in his mouth came back.  Tension stole into his shoulders. Will continued like he didn’t see any of that. “Barnes. That’s his name, right?  I’m not making shit up?”   
  
The tension didn’t leave.  “Yeah. He said you could call him that.”   
  
“Good.  He, of all people, ought to have a name.  Fuck knows he deserves it with all the shit… whatever.  Still. Good. Good for him. I’m glad he has a name.”    
  
Will didn’t volunteer anything and Rogers noticed.  Will thought it bothered him, but he wasn’t sure. “You’re still working for HYDRA.”   
  
“No, I don’t.  Dude’s got a right to his privacy, but it ain’t hard to miss.  I’m sure there’s an actual report on me no one bothered to read somewhere out there.  I work at Subway and the grocery store. Whatever else you think of me, you can figure on me believing that I earned whatever goddamn dignity and privacy you can give me and you won’t go near my coworkers without me getting real fucking pissy.  I don’t like Barnes.” Will snapped out, but it was low and his voice got a little more rough. “And he scares the shit out of me. He could scare the shit out of a shark. Don’t bug the kids with him. They’re not innocent but they don’t deserve that.”   
  
Rogers looked at him steadily.  “Tell me about HYDRA.”   
  
Will rolled his eyes.  “That’s it? Fine. I’ll tell you about my HYDRA.  But I’m only gonna say it once. And you don’t get to interrupt.  The audience can hold applause and questions for the end. Dig?”   
  
“Agreed.”   
  
“This is HYDRA.  You’re eighteen. You get hired.  You rise through the ranks because you feel like you’re actually doing some good in the world and they don’t say they’re HYDRA at first.  You hear things, sure, but you lie to yourself. Your team, your  _ family _ , wouldn’t do shit like that.  And you find out they did, but there were circumstances.  One person died, but five were saved. Mike’s a cocaine addict but he hasn’t used in four years, give him a break for a slip up.  Roxy got in a bar fight and killed someone but she turned herself in as soon as she sobered up and the charges were dropped because of bad police procedures, but she’s trying to change the world now and make up for it.  They’re only human. They’re flawed. They’re forgivable. And you keep lying to yourself. It’s okay. Or it’ll be okay. Or you can make it better. You’re on the inside now and this is your family and you need to be just as loyal to family as they are to you.   
  
“And then you fuck up and they help you.  And then you fuck up  _ with _ them and no one makes a big deal about it, they make excuses for you and you halfway believe them and then you really believe them because it just looked evil from the outside.  And you don’t ask questions. They were loyal to  _ you _ and you are going to return that fucking favor.   
  
"Until you’re in the middle of buttfuck nowhere and Captain Fucking America caves in your chest with his shield, anyway.  And then you’re asking all  _ sorts  _ of questions, but mostly you’re asking yourself are you about to die from drowning in your own blood, and what the hell you thought he was supposed to be a good guy.   
  
"And you're in a hospital bed and you can barely fucking breathe for a week.  And you go to a mass funeral and three of your best friends-slash-family are dead and a fourth is permanently paralyzed from the molars down because of Captain America and the Avengers.  And even that rat-fucker Pierce is there. Families. Mothers, fathers. Siblings. Children. Wives and husbands. They’re all there and they’re getting bitter and angry and sad.   
  
“You get a new team.  You aren’t close to them, they don’t want you there, but you can’t work solo and you can’t quit.  You try out for STRIKE and, excuse the pun, you strike out. Over and over again. But you keep trying because you’ve got no one left.  The other two survivors from your group are farmed out elsewhere, just like everyone else.

“And you see the Asset - don’t say a fucking word, he didn’t have a name back then - and that is the most messed up human being you’ve seen in your life.  And you see what the STRIKE team does to it. And it’s  _ wrong _ on so many inhumane levels you fucking run because you know you should  _ never _ have seen that.  And it clicks in, like absolutely nothing fucking else does, that you are absolutely on the wrong side because holy shit,  _ holy fucking shit _ .   
  
“You’re in shock enough that you ask your team - the ones who don’t want you there, the ones you can’t trust.  Next thing you know you’re in a little concrete room and you’re there for three weeks. You earn your nickname.  You make a plan. You get out of HYDRA and go to the relative safety of prison.   
  
“That’s my HYDRA.  Your experience may vary.”  Will smiled, bitter, brittle, and hollow.  Something dark and wild lurked under that smile, and even Rogers flinched away from it for a moment.  Or maybe it was the story, and in the realization that Will was done, he let it all sink in.   
  
“Go away.”  Will muttered.  His voice was rougher sounding than a cinderblock being dragged down the street.  “Just go away.”

 

* * *

Will contemplated the plastic cup of water, just out of reach.  He assumed it was supposed to be some sort of mild torture. It was right there.  He could feel the coolness of it through the two fingers that could brush over it.  He could see the condensation that misted across it. His tongue felt swollen and rough as sandpaper.   
  
Fuck them.  If it was a tease or torture, with it right there?  They could eat his entire ass.   


 

* * *

The Asset was back.  Will was back in his chair though his eyes were focused on the water.  He was slightly more alert than he had been, at least. The Asset, because he still didn’t have a name to lock on to the man while things were getting fuzzy around the edges, stayed statue still.  Just like in the apartment. Silent and still, and he smelled like vanilla and sugar - or what someone decided that should smell like in soap format. Will’s mouth twitched down for a second. He didn’t want to be alone with him again.  “Barnes.”   
  
The Asset didn’t offer a different name he had now, and Will didn’t ask for it.  They just sat there, watching each other for a moment. “Tell me about your nickname.  Why you felt like you had to hit me with a skillet over it.”   
  
“You didn’t listen the first time I told you not to call me Grada.”  Will suspected that this wasn’t going to be enough, and his hands curled into fists.  Ineffectual anger. He made himself relax them again.   
  
“What does it mean?”   
  
“Does it matter?”  Will snorted quietly.   
  
“Yes.”   
  
“It’s not Grada.  It’s  _ Nagrada _ , Russian accent.”   
  
“‘Reward’?”  For a moment, the Asset looked a little more human.  He moved. Shifted his weight a little from his left side to his right.  Uneasy. The pupils of his eyes got wider until they were black holes. Will wondered if it had been easier when he hadn’t been a person.   
  
“Yup.”

“Whose?”  There was something even more still about him now.  He’d stopped moving. The Asset looked confused first, and then alarmed.  His pupils were still huge, almost fixed to that state. There was a panic lacing through Barnes that Will couldn’t bring himself to care about on anything more than a surface level.  He’d know, but Will couldn’t forget.

“Yours.”   
  
The Asset swallowed hard.  “What did I… did I…”   
  
“Do you really want to know?”  Will felt almost sorry for him when he nodded.  He was so pale he could’ve been an ice sculpture come to life.  “You had me for three hours.” Will said it flatly. Just reporting the facts.  “Concussion, cracked skull, bites that broke skin and left scarring, bruises and internal bleeding.  Broke the head of the left femur, cracked the pelvis in multiple places. Left side. You got a hell of a grip.”   
  
“Oh, Jesus…”  He looked like he wanted to throw up.  Will edged back in the chair slightly just in case.

“Yeah.  I tried praying, too.  Didn’t help much.” He took a deep breath and let it out slowly.  “Look. It’s not… not your fault. You were just… I don’t know. You weren’t a person.  I get that. And I don’t really blame you for it. I’ve had time to think about it and I don’t.  That said… holy shit, dude. You scare me. Here especially. If it weren’t for the furniture, it’d be the exact same place.  I keep waiting for Rumlow to walk through the door and give you the same command code or trigger word or whatever it’s called.”  He shook his head. Will noticed that his fingernails were biting into his palms. He couldn’t remember clenching his hands, but that hurt a little bit and there was a drop of blood oozing down his palm.  Forcing his fingers open, he laid his hands down flat on the table. “I’d say it’s nothing personal, but it is. And we’re both stuck with it.”

This time when the Asset ( _ Barnes, dammit! _ ) left, he could hear him immediately starting to vomit before the door closed.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you to the lovely people who beta'd this for me - especially Sass. I wouldn't have had the guts to put this out without your encouragement.


End file.
